Thursday, September 18, 2008

Pray for Ray

Following in the footsteps of the cardinal-archbishop -- and, full disclosure, your narrator -- the former Boston mayor and US ambassador to the Holy See Ray Flynn appeared at the famous Bad Abbott's Theology on Tap in Quincy last night... where he collapsed mid-talk:

“He was talking about being the last guy cut from the Boston Celtics by Red Auerbach,” [son Ed] Flynn said, standing outside the hospital’s emergency room last night. “Even though you don’t succeed at one event in your life, you need to move on and work harder and (be) more determined. He didn’t get to finish the story . . . He got weak and he fainted.”...

Flynn served as state representative for South Boston in the late 1970s and then as Boston mayor from 1984 to 1993. He was appointed U.S. ambassador to the Vatican by President Clinton and was frequently called as a guest on national news programs during the height of the clergy sex abuse crisis.

Flynn’s brother Dennis Flynn, a firefighter, died of a heart attack late last month, and family friends say the former mayor had been hit hard by his sibling’s death.

About Me

One of global Catholicism's most prominent chroniclers, Rocco Palmo has held court as the "Church Whisperer" since 2004, when the pages you're reading were launched with an audience of three, grown since by nothing but word of mouth, and kept alive throughout solely by means of reader support.

A former US correspondent for the London-based international Catholic weekly The Tablet, he's been a church analyst for The New York Times, Associated Press, Washington Post, Reuters, Los Angeles Times, BBC, NBC, CNN and NPR among other mainstream print and broadcast outlets worldwide.

A native of Philadelphia, Rocco Palmo attended the University of Pennsylvania, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science. In 2010, he received a Doctorate of Humane Letters honoris causa from Aquinas Institute of Theology in St Louis.

In 2011, Palmo co-chaired the first Vatican conference on social media, convened by the Pontifical Councils for Culture and Social Communications. By appointment of Archbishop Charles Chaput OFM Cap., he's likewise served on the first-ever Pastoral Council of the Archdiocese, whose Church remains his home.